What controls your thoughts
by BellonaBellatrix
Summary: A very jealous Ginny. TG


Title: What Controls Your Thoughts...  
Prompt: Written for the Jealousy Challenge at FAP T/G thread.

Someone once said that what controls one's thoughts controls their eyes. As far as she could remember, her eyes were always on someone else. It wasn't intentional. Who poisons themselves on purpose, after all?

Ginny remembers when there was magic in everything. It was her seventh birthday, and it was supposed to be special. Her mother had woken her up, and that was unusual. Her mother usually shouted and let the echo of her voice wake them all. On this day, her mum shook her shoulder lightly.

"Hello, sweetheart." Her mother beamed, her hair arranged in a very orderly bun, and Ginny blinked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Guess what day it is?"

Ginny thought about this, sticking her tongue out in concentration. It wasn't Christmas or Howloween, or…then she gasped in delight.

"That's right. It's your special day," her mother said kindly. "I'm going to help you get ready."

Together, they opened her closet—which mostly consisted of her brother's old, hemmed trousers—except for one dress. Ginny pointed at the dress, and Molly pretended not to see it.

"Let's see…the green shirt is just lovely, on your birthday."

"Mum!" she shouted, jumping up and down slightly on her toes. "Mum! It's time for the ribbons!"

"Ah, these ribbons," Molly said, pulling out some blue ribbons out of her apron pocket. "Going to have to get the wrinkles out of this dress, though…"

Ginny sat on the window seat, cross-legged, and allowed her mother pull a comb through her hair without a fuss. She could see her reflection in the glass, and smiled shyly, feeling very special indeed.

Molly held her hand down the stairs, and Ginny touched the ribbons in her hair. "You're so pretty," her mother told her. "You take after me, of course."

She liked listening to the steps creak, and gazed at the dust motes, and thought how beautiful the day was…until her brother, Fred, stepped out of the kitchen, a lollipop in his mouth. He glanced up and burst out laughing, accidentally spitting out his lolli.

He fell to the ground, pointing. Ginny looked around curiously, until she realized that he was pointing at her.

"George!" Molly cried out, scandalized.

"What?!" a booming voice—full of crumbs—called from the kitchen.

"Oh, you had better not have touched that cake!" her mother screamed out, and picked up her skirt to hurry down the steps. Ginny stayed where she was, looking down at her shoes.

&&&

"Where's the birthday girl?" Arthur called, a birthday hat hanging lopsided off his head.

Ginny smiled up at him, hurrying to stand by his chair outside. They had the picnic table all nice and done up, with stars for a table-cloth, she had noticed, and she puffed out her chest in pride.

He patted her head, grinning.

"Remember to make a wish, dear. And…" He motioned to something under his chair, something wrapped as a present. "Here's a little something from your mother and I."

"Will my wish come true?"

"Well, I'm sure it will. If not, you'll be owed a wish. Then you could get a whole bunch of wishes at once."

Ginny thought this was very reasonable. Her mother set the birthday cake in front of her. A flower of icing had been added hastily, to cover up the piece missing, but Ginny didn't mind so much. It was pretty. She prepared to blow out her candles.

"AAAH!"

Followed by a crash, stopped her, and she coughed as she sucked the air back into her chest in surprise.

Percy's glasses had bit him on the nose, and Fred and George gave each other high-fives. She looked around at her brothers, excluding her two oldest brothers who were much to busy visiting friends, and she suddenly wished they were all visiting friends. Then the thoughts in her head branched out, following one limb to the next, and something inside of her, near her heart, felt very heavy.

She looked at Percy, on the ground, holding his hands cupped to his face, and her mother fawning over his cut. Her father was on his feet, trying to tell the twins to calm down, in an 'I'm your best mate' sort of way while her mother was simply shouting, mixed in with the cooing.

"How on earth did you get those glasses to pinch like that?" her father asked the twins under his breath.

"Arthur!"

"But it was very wrong, boys. Very wrong indeed."

Ron had reached over to swipe a piece of her cake with his finger, looking both amused at the prank and worried about his comeuppance.

Then Ginny looked around, her hands folded in her lap, her hat nearly toppling off. Something very strange happened with the world. The former fence that had looked like a crooked grin, like a train, like a ghost horse, like some special among the weeds—turned into a badly built fence. Just a badly, built fence.

She had a small bracelet made of old buttons—each from the sweater of her family— around her wrist. Before, it was beautiful, radiant, and told a story. Before it was a piece of herself, and now, in the ramble, it was just the leftovers from others.

Ginny looked at her family. Her mother was now holding Percy. The other four were in confidence, giving each other winks and nudges, and she was entirely out of the loop. She noticed she didn't have her own button on the bracelet, and she started to want so many things that her wish was a big one indeed.

To be special.

But not only that. To be loved. 'Please, she thought, closing her eyes fiercely. 'Let someone think I'm special and love me back.' She opened her eyes and blew out the candles.

"Oh," her father started, turning his attention back to his youngest. "Did you think of your wish already?"

Ginny nodded. Her gift was a broomstick, to use when she was older. Ron got to take it up in the air first.

She followed him with her eyes.

From then on, Ginny started to dream. It was very easy to make up stories about greatness. Especially when it isn't about you, and especially if others say it. The stories had to come from some source of truth, and this is how Ginny wanted to be special.

It was hard being in a magical world. Sometimes, when she was day-dreaming, she wouldn't have minded being a muggle. Or perhaps a half-blood, where she would stumble upon the Wizarding World anew and every day would be an adventure.

Then Ron went off to school, and on the platform, there was a boy. A boy with dark hair---though years later, it became as dark as a blackboard. At first, she had thought of a magic wanderer. She had noticed him, but it was when she found out who he was that…that his hair changed into something worth describing, even if she wasn't particularly good at it.

Odd.

When you want to describe something truly wonderful, the words were lost, and she felt childish. Ron's words were not so very lost, and he was a natural storyteller, his whole body becoming the story itself. Through Ron's words, she was taken right by Harry's side, step by step, and the world was suddenly magical once more.

When she met Harry, her words were heavy, but it was because she felt everything so vividly. Very vividly. She practiced in front of the mirror, what she would say. In front of him, though, her mind seemed to lock up. It was a treacherous thing, really.

It started to occur to her that he wasn't so very special, but it wasn't bad. It wasn't really that bad at all. Everyone wanted to be special. He didn't—shuffling it away with downward looks and with accurate and charming awkwardness— thus he was special, and she took him as her own. She would defend him herself, if necessary. She became his knight.

She was proud. She kept near him, sneaking glances when she could. In her mind, there was a sharp twinge when he spoke to someone else, laughed with someone else like her brother. Sometimes she felt like screaming. It must mean that she was quite taken with him, to use her mother's words.

Until she met someone else whom she couldn't see yet controlled her thoughts.

Her eyes.

&&&

_I feel guilty sometimes, you know._

She wrote to him. At first, it was a casual jotting down of a hello. Ginny did believe in signs. Signs came hand in hand with the fairytales, and only the boring, mundane-evil-lacked the sight to see it. Only the pure could pierce through the shadows, and she was proud that he was hers alone, this special person.

Then she found herself thinking of him during class, during the dining hall, and she would catch herself looking longingly at her bag. She would catch her fingers etching out a message without the quill or the diary. Somehow all the branching of her mind—all the dreams—became one central trunk of a thought, and that's all there was. Ginny couldn't stand not writing to him.

In the world of Hogwarts, she was a number. They stuttered over her name, and she imagined she was in the diary. She would be so lost in her thoughts that slowly, unknown to her, her peers began to think she was quite strange. For Ginny Weasley did not seem to like them at all. She would smile vacantly at them and answer the wrong question. Every once and awhile, someone would try again.

"So you have brothers?"

"Oh, no, not really," she muttered.

"I could have sworn…"

"That class is really difficult, isn't it?"

And it was clear she preferred her own world to theirs.

May I ask why? Are you bullying the Hufflepuffs when you're not writing me?

_Nothing like that…well. Maybe it's worse than that. _

What on earth could be worse?

_I'm serious, Tom. I'm just…what will you think of me if I told you?_

Ah. If you're afraid of my opinion…a diary is a mirror of yourself. And you will always try to hide what you are ashamed of, and that never works. You can't hide what you are. The more you bury it, the more people notice that the dirt on the grave has been stirred up. 

Ginny shuddered slightly. Tom's words—even the darker ones—were so very vivid. She could picture it in her mind, every detail. Her parent's disappointment, most of all.

_You mean…if I tell you, it will get better. _

Yes. It's just like sweating out a fever, Ginerva, or any sort of impurity. You will feel better. I promise. 

_I'm not very nice. I'm not as nice as you think I am._

Nice does not mean right or good, Ginny. And I have a pretty good idea of what you are like by now, after all our delightful chats. 

_I'm not good, then. I'm terrible…I want what others have. I'm always thinking on it, on what they can do, and I wonder if I can do better. Then I'm too scared to try. So I just feel sick all over. I really try to think good thoughts, like Mum said to, but then…it just happens. It wouldn't happen if I were good. _

You covet what others have? 

_I guess, if covet means a terrible person. _

And you feel guilty about that? Oh my dear girl…that's human nature. 

_I don't think so._

So you want to feel solitary in your sin. I see. You want to be perfect so very badly that you find fault within yourself to wear what is commonly known as a hair shirt. What is so wrong with trying to better yourself? Of course, you would. You're an intelligent girl, so you would observe your circumstances. Allow me to tell you a little secret…if you could take what they have so easily, then they did not deserve it in the first place. So I wouldn't feel badly at all, if I were you. 

Ginny thought about it, running the tip of the quill across her lips. And she remembered that her mother said that only people who truly appreciate what they have could keep it, in the face of any obstacle.

_You're right. You're absolutely right. It's not like they really cared about it in the first place._

Exactly. So what will you take?

_All my sweaters have holes in them, and I saw that Emily got a new one in the owl post. She just keeps it in her trunk. I think she dislikes the color of it._

Then take it. 

… _That would be stealing._

Is it? What is she doing? What has she done already? In a way, she has stolen the material, by not using it and having it rot in her trunk. It's not like she would miss it. She would lock her trunk if she valued her items so dearly. 

_I'll get caught. _

Are you alone now?

Ginny bit her lip, and peered over at the trunk at the foot of Emily's bed.

_Yes. I always write to you when I'm alone._

I know. And you always write to me, Ginerva. What a good friend you are. Let me be a good friend to you. I promise you will not get caught. I can give you a spell—it's not difficult—to change the color and size of the sweater. You do realize—if you are so anxious—you could simply owl the sweater to yourself, as a present for the holiday. It's simple. But if you are really afraid, forget it. 

And Ginny's eyes did the rest.

&&&

_Did you have a girlfriend, Tom? Someone you cared about?_

I knew many girls. I cannot properly call them friends. We were much more than that.

_Oh. _

Ginny's imagination was more vivid than her reality. During the day, she would picture him with them. They were beautiful, with shining eyes and soft lips, and they were similar to the witches in the magazines. Her hair was too red, her eyes too dull, and she was too short.

Ginny hated them. She hadn't known it was possible to hate a person who didn't exist, but oh, did she. She would hit them, sometimes. When she was alone. His diary would be nearby, it was always nearby. Ginny would hit her fists against the walls, over and over again, imagining the stones were the faces of those perfect girls. And if there were no walls, she would hit her knees. Her legs. Her arms.

Nonono, they were not perfect. They were cows, fat cows, and poor Tom was just being nice.

_Describe them for me._

The one I remember had blond hair and she was…she was beautiful. I really don't have the words to do her justice. 

She dug her nails into her palm.

Don't worry, my dear. Someday you will be beautiful. When you are older.

She would wipe the blood against the red of her robe.

Ginny would look at the girls around her, and burn with hatred. She wondered: would Tom find them pretty? Were they prettier than her?

She began to draw pictures of the girls around her for him, on the clean page of the diary, in detail, with circles to point out their flaws, and he would laugh.

At first, she just wanted to know what he found attractive. Later, she did it because it made her feel good.

The page was always clean after it had been dirty with her drawings, and that made her feel...special. It was as if she was right, after all.

When Hermione's features were caught in a permanent disfigurement of fear and despair, they laughed together.

&&&

Ginny was jealous of time.

Ginny hated that little girl who got to speak to Tom, and she was jealous of the time when she was living in happiness with his lie. She was jealous of Harry because he could look in the mirror any time that he wanted to see Tom. She was jealous of Luna because Luna—who was touched by everything: death, tragedy, and alienation—could see the magic in the world, like she did before she turned eleven.

If only she hadn't woken up. But Luna was hers, she had stolen her away while no one was looking…

Ginny was jealous of Hermione, who found the time to criticize herself for her imperfection and still be perfect.

She was jealous of herself. Looking in the mirror, she thought her reflection knew something, and was beautiful. She was beautiful. He wasn't there to see it, and she hated her own face for aging in his absence.

Ginny still has the sweater. She would take it out, and hold it in her hands, looking at the material. It really had been hideous.

Her eyes could not see herself unless she looked for her reflection.

So she looked for her reflection in a golden cup, with an emblazoned HH on the side.

Then they could be jealous of each other.


End file.
